"This is a different camp. The feeling around here is different. The mentality is different. It's not a win or lose here, it's win or else. And I think everyone is OK with that."

2.24: CS on with 'EEI's D&C: "I think I've always been pretty open. As people in Philadelphia will tell you, there's not a whole lot of mystery to me. I've never had a problem with people knowing how I feel about things, right or wrong, so this is certainly a different environment for me, given the intensity and the scrutiny, but it's something I'm very comfortable with, I'm excited. And I understand the first time I go out there and give up 6 runs in a game in April, these same people will be calling me names, so, it's OK though.

The guys that come here and excel here are a different breed. Baseball on the East coast of the United States is a lot different than anywhere else in the country, in the world for that matter, and New York is like the epicenter for intensity, and Boston is right there with it."

GC: I remember you told once what you did with your first major league paycheck, cashed it, literally, twenties and tens and went to sleep with it...

CS: Actually I spread it out all over my bed and watched TV on it. I thought it was more money than I was ever going to spend in my lifetime.

GC: That was the goofy Curt, you had earring, nose ring, and nipple rings...

CS: No nipple rings, no nose rings, just the earring... and a white Beemer supposedly with spinning hub caps from what I hear.

GC: You have forfeited the right to say 'I want my privacy, I need my privacy, when you drive around in a Hummer that changes colors...

CS: The privacy thing is, honest to God, I sign fewer autographs and I know more people in Philadelphia than anywhere in the country. Because they know me, they know my family. When I'm out with people in public, they ask how Gehrig is doing, or how my wife is doing. I was part of that community. I envision kind of the same thing happening here. It's going to be a little different. There's going to be a lot less privacy and it's one of the reasons we decided to live where we're going to live. There will be a little more privacy instead of being in the city but when I want my privacy I'll find it, and my family will find it. Otherwise, it doesn't bother me.... what a great guy he is, great guy (Drew Bledsoe).

JD: What motivates you at this stage of your career, you've got money, accolades, championships, all the honors, what makes you get up in the morning and say "I'm gonna work my ass off even harder this year?

CS: The respect from my peers. You develop a reputation in the game on performance. A lot of people come up with a reputation, however it's been given, and it changes when you get to the big leagues. You develop a reputation solely by performing in the big leagues. And I've always wanted to be a guy that when I took the mound the 24 guys on my bench were saying "it's frickin' win day" and the 25 guys on the other bench are going "crap." You want to be the pitcher that the other team knows is pitching four days before you're pitching. And you only get that through consistent performance... year in and year out.

JD: Which is the greater emotion in your gut on the day you pitch... CS: Fear... loving to win, or hating to lose.

CS: Absolute fear. Oh yeah, I'm scared to death on the day... JD: There's a fear of failure in you... CS: absolutely, intensely, huge fear of failure. (Anyone who says there isn't is lying right?) well, is not much of a competitor. I hate losing 100 times more than I love winning. Absolutely. Because when I win, and I pitch and work and I do what I do, that 20 or 30 minutes after I pitch a good game, and you're in the clubhouse, and you're with our teammates, and you've done your job. And I hop in the car to go home and I've got Saturday's start on my mind. Who's gonna catch? And what the lineup's gonna be. And you have to do that for six months.

The competition that RJ and I had, it was a lot of fun because you see people setting a bar and doing things that you never thought you could do. And then you go out and do it and you realize there isn't a ceiling there and you compete against each other in a good way. I wanted to pitch better than him, not because he pitched poorly and I pitched well, but because he pitched good and I pitched great. And I see the same dynamic here. Pedro's the ace of this staff, and as much as people wanted to make an issue out of it, it's not. The fact of the matter is he's going to start opening day because he deserves to start opening day and once the season starts that's when I try to be the best pitcher on the staff.

GC: What changed you from that goofy kid that the Red Sox gave up on, and Baltimore and Houston gave up on, obviously the big acquisition of this off season and a perennial Cy Young contender, was it really Roger Clemens advice?

I think Roger was the first step, and a huge step for me. I was working out in the off-season in 1991 in the Astrodome and Roger was in the weight room working out. And I was kinda going through the motions of getting my time in, whatever I had to do and Gene Coleman the strength coach came over and said Roger wanted to talk to me. And I knew Roger, from being in the Red Sox organization before that, and being the pitcher that he was, and so I said great. So one thing I like to talk about is pitching. I thought that's what we were going to do. So I went over there and he proceeded to chew my ass off for about an hour and a half. And, I had lost my father three years before that, and I had not really had that guy in my life that said "listen, you know what? you need to sit down and shut up and listen. This is how it's going to work. This is what you need to do and when he got done." And instead of walking away like a lot of people and saying 'what does he know?' my first thought was here's a guy who's won a bunch of Cy Youngs. Just spent an hour and a half of his day, and actually gave a crap about me, and OK I need to start addressing some issues. And I didn't turn it around that day, there was a process, but I think it started that day, and that was the biggest step.

On being a mentor himself: ...David McCarty were talking about my split finger fastball today, and he kind of wants to kind of mess with that, and after that discussion I started to talk to him about some real simple stuff. Stuff that you can start working on when you go out and play catch every day. Stuff that you can accomplish to get better without being on the mound. Little things. That's what it ends up being and I've never met a great player in the game that didn't pay attention to detail. And that's what I'm all about when it comes to pitching.

On New York vs. Boston: If I went to New York, and won a World Series, I would become part of the tradition. If I came to Boston, and helped them win a World Series in Boston, we would be changing everything. As much as people want to say how important I might be to all this, I understand, I've been there twice. It's gonna take a lot of guys to get this done.

This is a different camp. The feeling around here is different. The mentality is different. It's not a win or lose here, it's win or else. And I think everyone is OK with that.

On BK and pressure: BK's got to come and decide he wants it. I think he's had five years in the big leagues. I think he's over the culture shock and the change. I think it's going to be up to him. If he decides it's what he wants and he's going to go out and pitch and win, he'll be everything you want him to be.

The “Curt’s Pitch
for ALS” program is a joint effort by Curt and Shonda Schilling, and The
ALS Association Mass Chapter to strike out Amyotrophic Lateral
Sclerosis, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

Curt and Shonda
will be contributing $25,000 to The ALS Association Massachusetts
Chapter, and they are asking fans to contribute as well. All proceeds
will benefit research and patient services for those in Massachusetts
affected by the disease. Program participants will receive different
incentive prizes based on the dollar amount per strikeout that they
pledge.
Please
click here to learn more about the program.